I second DateTime. However if you are reading date strings from a data file or db and bneed to convert them i have found that DateTime::Format::DateParse works really well for this

Do something like:

use strict;
use warnings;
use DateTime::Format::DateParse;

my $dt = DateTime::Format::DateParse->parse_date($date_string, $zone);
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The module will parse your date string and return a DateTime object (which you can then use the DateTime methods etc to do stuff with the date). You would then use $dt->set_time_zone() to change your time zone.

See DateTime::Format::DateParse and DateTime For more information about the modules.